Bom dia
- theoseeds
- Oct 23, 2024
- 2 min read
On Friday morning I stepped onto an airplane. I looked the first flight attendant I saw dead in the eye.
He smiled at me and said “Bom dia”. (That means “good day” in Portuguese.)
“Uhhhh… bommjia”, I said back.
I was confused. Why was he speaking Portuguese?
My flight was between Bogotá, Colombia, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. 2 cities that speak Spanish. Not Portuguese.
That wasn’t the only time I heard Portuguese on that flight. Once we were all sitting down, they told us the safety instructions… in Portuguese.
Then after we took off, the captain told us he was turning off the fasten seatbelt sign… in Portuguese.
(“I don’t know what the hell they’re saying”, said the Argentinian man in the row behind me.)
Why were they speaking Portuguese? Because they were a Brazilian airline. They spoke Portuguese… and I guess they must’ve thought we did, too.
It was even weirder because the flight crew spoke Spanish just fine. When they came down the aisle to offer us drinks, or give us food, or take away our trash, they spoke Spanish. I have no clue why they spoke Portuguese over the loudspeaker.
Seems silly, right? But pretty much every business owner makes the same mistake. Especially coaches.
A lot of coaches come to me and ask me, “Theo, why isn’t my program selling?” Then I look at their website, and it’s covered in weird jargon and pet theories.
In other words, they’re saying stuff that they understand, that nobody else understands. (They might as well be speaking a different language.)
Some examples include women’s business/spirituality coaches who talk about stuff like “chakra meditations”, and men’s dating coaches who talk about “inner game”.
What’s the problem? Most people don’t know what that stuff is, and they don’t care. And if you try to explain it to them, they’re not gonna understand you.
So don’t speak your own language. Instead, speak your audience’s language.
Put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what they know. Ask yourself what their biggest problems are right now. And ask yourself what they need to know before they buy something from you.
Don’t know how your audience thinks? It’s not that hard to learn. Just do some market research.
Market research usually takes forever, but I’ve learned a few tricks that make it way easier. I included them in my mini-book, How To Make 2x More Money From Your Email List.
One of the tricks involves doing a 5-minute search on YouTube.
Wanna know what it is?
You can get a copy of the book here: